You write pretty well based on these few sentences. I have found that nothing improved my writing more than reading authors I liked and being aware of (in some cases adopting or imitating elements of) their writing styles. Did you read a lot on your own?
Pretty much everything I know I picked up in community college about six years after graduating high school with a 2.6 GPA. I like to think I'm a smart and empathetic person. I would love to meet the person who got to use those innate skills at a young age instead of having to dredge up whatever remained after a decade of neglect.
I think this is a highly individualized question depending on the circumstances.
I'd qualify as smart depending on the metric. I actually went to a private school (the public schools in the area were complete garbage and out of control - bomb threats, drugs, etc at the middle school level). It really wasn't that challenging and most of my useful knowledge beyond the basic read/write/math is self taught. Most of the stuff I learned in college was never used. Using those innate skills at a young age produced nothing tangible. I won't achieve any real success in life even though I checked all the boxes when I was younger - smart, good grades, extracurriculars, family, religion, went to college, etc.
Really all any good school or parent can do that is helpful is teach their kids to want to learn and how to self-teach. Most schools are terrible at this and just want to hit test scores and follow procedures/regulations (learning environment can be atrocious). I'd say most parents are average at this.
The real question is, what do you think would be different and why can't you achieve that now?
I will second this. I went to a normal parochial school and my wife went to a normal public school and we both agree that our higher-than-average educational outcomes were due to self-teaching and tons of parental tutoring.
